


History Lesson

by Dorksidefiker



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 11:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorksidefiker/pseuds/Dorksidefiker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie Bennett has been voraciously devouring every bit of history to do with the Guardians that he can get his hands on, so when a journal dating back to the Golden Age comes into his possession, he's over the moon.</p><p>If he'd been a bit older, maybe he would have questioned who would give him the journal... and why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Lesson

North's workshop was a treasure trove.  
  
It wasn't the toys (well, not _just_ the toys) for Jamie.  For him, it was the _books_.  There were literally thousands of them on every imaginable subject.  Dusty old bestiaries shared space with the histories of long dead empires, biographies of forgotten spirits nestled beside unpublished novels and beloved folios.  One time, Jamie found a grimoire penned by John Dee being pressed into service as a door stop before he could rescue it.  
  
North valued his books, even if his organization was at best haphazard.  The elves, not so much.  
  
Jamie devoured them voraciously.  It was more than just the confirmation that everything he'd ever believed in was actually _real_ \-- it was the secret history of the world.  The truth of Rasputin written in his own words, the language of the stars, the poetry of a dryad, the final days of Atlantis as told by the survivors... and of course, the millenia long war against Pitch Black, stretching back to the Golden Age itself.  
  
By fifteen, Jamie was probably the greatest living expert on the Guardians, from their modern incarnation back to their earliest roots.  The volumes written by Katherine Shalazar were the greatest help; she'd written not only the stories collected from the Guardians themselves, but had made serious headway in translating the language of the Constellations, leaving behind not only the translated tales of the Golden Age, but pages and pages of translation notes.  Without all her hard work, he'd have never been able to understand The Journal at all.  
  
He hadn't given it much thought when The Journal first appeared on his desk; North left Jamie books he thought the boy might be interested in all the time.  The slim, leather bound volume didn't look any more important than anything else Jamie had gotten his hands on over the years.  It wasn't until he opened the book that he even realized just _how_ old what he held in his hands really was.  The book predated _human civilization_.  
  
It took Jamie two days with the help of Katherine's notes on Golden Age languages to translate the first line.

 

  
_After much debate, we've chosen to name our daughter Seraphina._

  
  
The date on the page was meaningless to Jamie; in some of her notes on Constellation Civilization, she'd noted that their calender was radically different from anything ever used on Earth, and _that_ wasn't even taking into account the hundreds of localized variants used by the various cultures within the Empire itself.  Beyond using the dates to try and keep track of how long the writer of the journal went between entries, he didn't give them much thought.  
  
After weeks of careful translation, Jamie began to put together the life he was reading about.  The writer was an officer in the Constellation Army, with a wife and, by the beginning of the journal, a young daughter.  Most of his writing was concerned with them; he said very little about his service in the pages Jamie translated, beyond noting that he loathed to leave them behind, and that he hoped the ongoing battle against the Fearlings would end soon.  There were stories from his service, usually amusing anecdotes involving the hijinks his men would get up to during the periods between battles.  Jamie counted two promotions between the beginning of the journal and the single sentence that made his guts twist into a horrible not.

 

  
_All the stars have gone out, and there is no light left for me._

  
  
Jamie had no idea how long it was between that entry and the next, which detailed having to find a new nanny for Seraphina, as the old one was terribly unsuitable.  He noted that the writer of the journal never again spoke of his wife, and made no mention of what had happened to her, but Jamie could made a few educated guesses.  During the height of the Constellation War, there'd been a number of attacks made by the Dream Pirates on civilian populations, with heavy casualties.  The writer didn't  <i>need</i> to talk about it (didn't even want to <i>think</i> about it) for Jamie to understand.  Instead, he filled his days with his daughter until he was called back to service.  
  
The writer hadn't liked that at all, spending several pages detailing the failings of the Lunanoffs as monarchs, war leaders, and compassionate beings.

 

 

_Haven't I sacrificed **enough**?  Is Seraphina to spend her life without either parent?_

  
Still, despite his private railings, the writer accepted his new posting.  
  
It was weeks before Jamie returned to translating the journal after that.  Reading the words had become too hard; he just wanted the writer to be able to leave the army behind and settle down with Seraphina in their little house in the country, where nothing bad could ever get them and they could live happily ever after.  Jamie knew better, of course; when Pitch Black rose and the Golden Age of the Lunanoff Empire fell, there would be nothing left.  The man who's words Jamie translated was long dead, most likely killed by the Fearlings he fought to protect his daughter from.

 

Still, eventually, Jamie continued to read.  Time began to heal the writer's wounds, though Jamie could still see the lingering resentment towards the Lunanoffs, a subtle undercurrent beneath the words.  Seraphina grew from child to young lady, and the writer spoke with dread of how she wanted to become a Star Pilot.  The war was going well, and the writer hoped that it would be over before Seraphina could follow through on her dream.  The Tsar was enacting a bold plan to lock away all the Fearlings and Nightmares in an inescapable prison where they could never harm anyone ever again.  The Empire was on the brink of winning the war, and the writer was completely unaware of the horror to come.

 

The final entry took Jamie completely by surprise.  He'd been expecting an announcement that he was finally being allowed to retire, or at least another entry detailing Seraphina's much beloved garden, or what bit of mischief she'd gotten up to when no one was looking.

 

 

_I am a coward._

_Seraphina, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you the truth.  
_

_I love you.  I'm doing this so you can live a life without fear.  
_

__I hope someday you can forgive me.  
_ _

__

__Kozmotis  
_ _

__

___  
__ _

 

Jamie's hands shook as he closed the journal, shoving it away.  He _knew_ the name Kozmotis, though he hadn't made the connection between the greatest general of the Golden Age and the journal's writer.  In hidesight, he should have, but he genuinely didn't want to think that the man who had delighted in reading his daughter the same story every night for a month had become the same monster who had wiped entire planets from existance.

 

Jamie didn't want to think about how Pitch Black had once been just a man.  It was easier that way.

 

 

 

Three days after Jamie finished the journal, the butterflies appeared.

 

They turned up in the oddest places, following him for hours on end before disappearing again in a cloud of brilliant colors.  He allowed it to go on for only a day; it wasn't like he could get away with skipping school or missing out on his volunteer hours at the library just because he was suddenly attracting every Lepidopteran for miles around, no matter how great an excuse it sounded in his head.

 

The moment he was free, Jamie grabbed Kozmotis's journal and followed the butterflies.

 

Mother Nature was waiting on the edge of Jack's pond, clad in grey and green and still as a statue when Jamie approached.  It was deeply unnerving to watch the butterflies settle on the ancient spirit as her stormy eyes bored into him, their movement the only sign of life.  Jamie held up the journal, a dozen questions all fighting to make themselves heard first.  _Why did you give this to me?  What do you want from me?  Why are you here?_

_Did the cat you adopted really smell **that** bad?  
_

 

"Did you ever forgive him?"

 

Mother Nature blinked slowly, head tilting to one side as she took the journal back from Jamie.  Her fingers were cool where they brushed against the back of his hand.

 

"No."

**Author's Note:**

> Before anyone following my other stories asks: yes, I'm working on them. Slowly but surely. Until I've got something I'm happy with... here's this.


End file.
